I came to Substack at a time of deep discord and disconnection in the world. Planet critical. Insanity in charge. Now what? The How We Saved the World essay contest, that involved the survival of humanity, was a hot enough topic to get a sizzle going. Now, how to get the ideas that were cooked up out to the world?
From the 175 essays submitted, there are two tracks now at casa Sue Speaks. One is about the stories, their content and their literary value. The other is getting essay-writing going all over. Writers were so happy to have been asked. It got them thinking.
I keep thinking of things like the ice bucket challenge that raised millions for ALS, where people had a bucket of watery ice dumped over their heads. It was everywhere -- on the internet, on TV, in the press. Celebrities got into it. How about How We Saved the World essays buzzing everywhere? No need for a contest. People would post stories. Positive energy would flow. We’d be pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps. Turning ourselves on.
Someone connected me with a social networker I like, and I sent her this:
For something I can do myself, right away, I’m liking Bedtime Stories. I’d read an essay and say what I appreciate about it.
“The Bedtime Storyteller. Go to sleep dreaming about the world we want. Send Suzanne your essays for her to possibly read. Write from 2050, when the world is working, and, including something you did, explain how we got there.”
This could grow to people writing stories everywhere, not having to do with me – set off a craze where the internet is buzzing with stories and conversations.
For now, for us, Comments on Substack are our clubhouse, and there’s a category of posts about the contest with ongoing conversations you can be contributing to.
In this scattershot of progress, this is from David Gardener, who submitted a very good essay:
“…sticking with the idea that every essay is a seed that could serendipitously land in the lap of someone who will take it (or aspects of it) up and nurture it to fruition is always a possibility. I believe great future-changing ideas carry vital energetic frequencies that are seeking properly fertile humans in which to land so they can become manifest as actualities. Everything currently extant in our human realm began first as an idea in consciousness.”
Our clubhouse, the hot tub, circa late ‘70s:
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I just had an amazing experience--one that leads me to imagine what can happen from these essays. I was talking to a friend of mine who just had a triumph. The grant that she wrote several years ago, to have a Grandparents Garden in her condo community, was finally accepted! She was daydreaming aloud about how fill the Garden- and I remembered one of the essays, about Benches and Snacks. A simple idea, to provide benches and snacks everywhere so people can TALK. (I fear I am oversimplifying it, please forgive me.) But I pictured a Bences and Snacks bench in my friend's about-to-happen Grandparents Garden and I felt the electricity --and POWER--of connection.
Hi Leela. So I just went to the site you shared (incredibily interesting!) and I had to join to get in. Says they'll get back to me in 48 hours. In the meantime--let's imagine what this would look like (spreading your idea.) Say my friend who's doing this garden says she wants a bench. I'm a writer, I would write an article about the connection between the Grandparents Garden and the Benches and Snacks idea. (And the goal would be to have OTHER people want such a bench ... ) . Is that how you imagine it? I should go back and read your essay again, I think.